Okay, so first, you need to decide what kind of business do you want to start:

You can open a Shopify store, drive traffic to it with Facebook and Instagram ads, and sell your products without holding any inventory yourself (the manufacturer will ship the product to the customer once the sale is made).

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).. You can create your own web application that you then sell using a monthly subscription model.

Info products. You can build up a personal brand in a particular niche, then create a product that is relevant to your followers, and sell it to them.

All three business models are legitimate ways to make money only. Think about your skills and talents. What are you good at? Then pick a model that best suits you personally.

Pick a niche

Don’t try to sell generic products. You will be much better off picking a niche. Ideally, your niche should be…

You should be at least somewhat passionate about your niche. Otherwise, chances are that you will be bored out of your mind, and quit before you even have a chance of success.

There should be legitimate demand for whatever it is that you are trying to sell. Are there other companies in your niche that are doing well? If there aren’t any, there’s probably no demand, and you should move on.

Once again, don’t try to sell generic products, pick a niche, the more specific it is, the better.

Set up a business website

If you decided to go with dropshipping, this part is going to be easy, because all you need to do is open a Shopify store and then tweak it to your liking.

If you decided to go with SaaS or info products, then you’ll need to set up your website from scratch:

Get a reliable hosting provider. This is important because you don’t want your website to crash all the time.

I recommend you to use WordPress to set up a blog. Make sure that you add a contact form so that current and potential customers could reach out to you (use this WordPress form plugin).

Knowledge base. It’s best to streamline your customer support from the beginning so that you wouldn’t be overwhelmed with requests once your business takes off. I suggest you to use HelpJet to do that.

Having a website is not enough. You need to be able to capture those visitors and convert them to subscribers so that you could reach out to them later. I suggest using Seva for email list and Web Push Notifications – MaxTraffic for push notifications. Don’t skip this step!

Drive traffic to your website

People don’t know about your business yet. It’s up to you to change that. You can drive traffic to your website in these three ways:

Is your content optimized for search engines? You might be missing out on organic traffic!

Content marketing. Building a blog and becoming an expert in your niche can be a great way to get on the radar of your potential customers.

Paid advertising. Paid traffic is the most reliable form of traffic once you learn how to run effective campaigns. So give Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and Google AdSense a try!

I suggest you to experiment with all three methods in order to see what works best for your business.

Learn from your experience

Constantly analyze what works, what doesn’t, and why. And don’t be afraid to pivot if your current angle isn’t working!

Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst!

The reality is that 8 out of 10 businesses fail within the first year and a half. The odds are not in your favour. This is why it’s important to have an emergency fund. Also, you should always keep your resume up-to-date (see resume examples here)!